


Twilight Truth

by genmitsu



Series: Imagination Infection [4]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:16:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genmitsu/pseuds/genmitsu
Summary: "It's you, isn't it?"





	Twilight Truth

**Author's Note:**

> I doubt this will become better if I rewrite it once more. So here it is. I'd hope for you to enjoy it, but that borders on masochistic, so...

 

 

Jim has the day free and he wishes he didn’t, because he spends a ridiculously long time choosing his outfit for the evening. It has to be something casual but at the same time smart, because he wants to look good for Oswald, but also not like he’s trying too hard. But also like he was just there on business too, maybe, and not for a date.

Jim still hasn’t decided whether he would tell Oswald the truth or not. Their relationship will change after tonight, irrevocably. Oswald would… Oswald would… No. Jim can’t predict what Oswald would do and want, he can only hope, and at this point he doesn’t even know what he’s hoping for. For the change? For the status quo? For something in between?

The way Oswald spoke about his unrequited feelings is touching something profound in him, something Jim never thought was in him at all. He doesn’t want this person Oswald longs for to be anyone other than him. He knows Oswald had a thing - no, that’s not right. Oswald had _ feelings _ for Nygma, feelings so deep he jeopardized his mayor career and ended up almost dead for all his love. That’s the way Oswald loves, abandonly, torrentially, murderously. Jim shivers at the thought and it’s not fear that makes his skin feel electrified. He can’t let this go, can’t forget him, and he should feel appalled but he doesn’t.

Jim combs his hair, chooses his cologne - not something he wore for Barbara, definitely not the one he wore for Lee, and ends up with the one he wore in Academy, cool like water and lemon zest. It’s not posh or seductive, but it feels right and Jim looks at himself in the mirror and finds he likes what he sees. Would Oswald? Jim isn’t particularly vain, but he misses the look of admiration on Oswald’s face. The thought almost makes him take everything off and just go in his usual work suit.

Jim is jittery all the way to their meeting place, a bar near Paisley square, and he arrives early enough to see Oswald walk inside. Jim only sees him from the back, but there’s no way he could mistake that posture and gait, and he sits in his car for several minutes trying to calm himself. His heart is beating like crazy, pounding in his chest. This is a mistake, this is a mistake, thisisamistake, thisis…

Jim scoffs and gets out of the car. He squares his shoulders, takes a deep breath, and walks into the bar good fifteen minutes after their agreed time. Despite it being rather full, he notices Oswald instantly, sitting at an angle to be able to see the door. He’s a lone figure by the bar, and the lines of him are so elegant that Jim just takes the sight in, helpless in his appreciation. Oswald is wearing a sharp black suit that seems to make him even thinner and leaner, the wingtip collar starkly white against it, and his vest and tie are some different shades of purple with a hint of something golden, and Oswald looks exquisite, like a jewel, like something out of a dream. He’s staring into his drink, and only raises his head when Jim sits beside him.

“Jim,” he says, just a little bit breathless, and there’s astonishment in his eyes when he clearly thinks that it’s him for one mad second - but then it changes into something closed and Jim loses all of his nerve altogether.

“Oswald,” Jim nods to him and gestures the bartender for whiskey.

“How come you’re here, Jim?” Oswald asks, his voice carefully composed. If Jim didn’t know better, he would’ve believed that he was genuinely making small talk.

“Just passing by,” Jim shrugs. “What about you?”

“Oh, you know, business,” Oswald waves his hand, face an unreadably pleasant mask, his smile properly in place for Jim, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s always a pleasure to see you though, old friend. How have you been?”

Jim takes a sip of his drink, trying to mask the effect Oswald has on him. He wants to look at him forever, enchanted and yearning, and he also wants to push him into a dark corner and finally learn the way he tastes. But the moment of truth has passed, the chance forever wasted and now he only has unease and stiffness in his limbs.

“Alright I guess. Busy.”

“I can imagine,” Oswald smiles. “Gotham is quite a mess lately.”

Jim lets out a laugh despite himself. “You can say that again.” He takes another sip, whiskey burning the words that really want to spill out of him in his throat. “Is that business of yours something I need to be concerned about?”

“I don’t think so,” Oswald says, his eyes growing cold like steel, and he’s not so much a jewel right now as a poisonous thorn, a dagger ready to strike. The shiver runs down Jim’s spine and again it has nothing to do with fear. But if he’s not going to tell Oswald anything, if he can’t act on his desires, what even is he doing here? This  _ was _ a mistake.

“Good,” he says and downs his drink. He puts cash on the bar counter, standing up. “I’ll be seeing you then,” he says, turning for the exit and hearing nothing but his stupid heart beating in his throat. Every step is so heavy, as if he’s filled with lead, as if he’s underwater, and his vision is blurry.

His phone vibrates then and he reaches for it blindly, and stares blankly at the message that reads “It’s you, isn’t it?”

His throat is dry and he feels frozen, and then Oswald is in his face, beautiful and bold and reaching for his phone. He takes it from Jim’s clammy fingers and reads the text.

The silence that follows is worse than any kind of insult or wound. Jim dares to look at Oswald and the expression of his face punches the last of air out of Jim’s lungs. Oswald is holding his phone, not the regular one, but the one Jim got for contacting him without revealing himself, and-- he should’ve told him.

“Why?” Oswald asks, his voice soft.

“I…” Jim can’t get anything else out of his mouth. Oswald’s eyes are all that he sees, pale oceans of ache and longing, and Jim is so powerless in their depths, drowning miserably without even thinking to ask for help.

“Did you want to… laugh at me?”

Jim shakes his head, a half-broken “No” finally making it past his lips. This was never for laughs, this was only for...

“Then what was it, Jim? What did you want?..” Oswald looks at him, and his fingers are on Jim’s arm now as he waits so patiently for the explanation, hoping for something that would make it alright, and Jim can only tell him the truth.

“You,” he croaks. “I wanted you.”

Oswald exhales, his cheeks getting a rosy blush, his fingers tighten on Jim.

“...Why did you lie, Jim? You should’ve known I would--” he cuts himself off and distances himself, his hand not touching Jim anymore. “You got cold feet, didn’t you?”

Oswald straightens his back even more and reads in Jim’s eyes the confirmation he cannot voice. He takes another step back, looking Jim over silently, his face falling.

“And yet here you are, eyeing the forbidden fruit. How noble of you to keep me in the dark till the end.”

“Oswald…”

“No, Jim. That’s what it is. You’re fine with coming to me, fine with using me, but you just won’t give me the truth.” Oswald’s voice doesn’t change its tone, it only has a hint of tremble in it, and it’s not even accusatory. He looks at Jim, intense and sad, his face even sharper now and frighteningly pale. “And I’ve been pining for you for so long I would’ve been content with being your dirty little secret too, and I wouldn’t have told a soul.” Oswald shakes his head and juts his chin higher. “Not anymore, Jim.”

He turns on his heel and stalks out of the bar, and Jim can only watch after Oswald’s words as near as gutted him.

Jim somehow ends up back at the bar, the glass that Oswald abandoned gripped tight in his hand. Oswald drank some wine and Jim was never a fan, but he takes little sips now and then, feeling numb and barely registering the taste.

Truth hurt. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Oswald saw right through him, right into his cowardly and twisted heart, as always. And the only thing about Jim that Oswald wouldn’t accept was this cowardice. Who’d want that anyway? Jim himself doesn’t want himself like that.

Oswald’s words ring in his head on repeat, intensifying this burning feeling in his chest. But Jim only has himself to blame for ruining what they could’ve had. He couldn’t fight off his desire, couldn’t keep away from Oswald while not accepting him as Oswald did for Jim, and of course it could only end badly.

If he started it with a lie, he should’ve continued with a lie. Told Oswald he was in a different city or something. Or just stopped texting him and trying to deal with his craving in such a fucked up way. Then maybe he could’ve salvaged the relationship he and Oswald had before, the working one, the one where Jim came for info and Oswald provided, and…

How long would that have lasted anyway? Jim’s feelings towards Oswald have always been intense. Coming closer to him meant the same end as it did for Icarus.

Jim smiles despite himself. He would’ve never compared Oswald to the sun before, but now, with him hurt by Jim, with him going away, the world really seems so much darker and colder. And how one goes about returning the sun to his life anyway? When he hurt it in the first place. Would something like “I’m sorry” actually cut it?

_ Is  _ Jim sorry? Did he really want the end to them? He knew it was the point of no return and he went with it anyway, and - no, he didn’t want them to end. He wanted Oswald, wanted them to have something real.

That worked out splendidly.

 

The plastic cracks satisfyingly under Oswald’s heel. He can’t think of hurting Jim back, never, but the phone he took with him without realizing is close enough. It will have to do.

 

 


End file.
